Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,114
two shows yet, okay?”
“You’re not going to get him back here.”
“I know, but let me try. It’s only Monday. You have the rest of the week to cancel.”
“Yeah, but if I’m going to cancel on people, it seems better to give them as much notice as I can. And I have to get Marjorie going on issuing refunds.”
“Give me twenty-four hours.”
“What are you going to do? Send in the Mafia and threaten to break his legs? This isn’t like throwing him out of your bar.”
“You just said you trusted me.”
“Fine,” she harrumphed.
“Okay, now we gotta get moving on this application. We have to start over, and it’s due a week from tomorrow. I really should go open the bar. So let me take a crack at a first draft and I’ll email you?”
“So there you go; that’s the whole sordid story.” Maya flopped back on her bed in the pink room. She had invited Eve and Nora up that evening for a summit.
Maya could handle Ben when they were fighting. Or when they were having sex. But she didn’t know what to make of this new, collegial, business-partner version of him. His plan to do a joint grant application was great, of that she had no doubt. But was it a platonic plan? Were they done sleeping together? “So I guess we’re just going to be friends now? He’s going to email me?”
Eve laughed. “You make it sound like the worst torture imaginable.”
“The thing is, Ben sees me. Like, he really sees me.”
“Whoa, whoa. You’re calling him Ben now?” Nora asked.
“I think when a person sees you, you’re supposed to use the nickname,” Eve said.
“We’re happy for you,” Nora said. “He’s a great guy.”
“You’re talking like we’re together. That is not what’s happening here. He’s all, ‘We’re getting the grant together, we’re business partners, I’ll email you.’ So, like, what? Are we just never going to talk about our interlude of sleeping together?”
“You know what’s a good way to talk about something?” Eve appeared to be directing her question to Nora rather than Maya.
“Talk about it?” Nora answered.
“Bingo,” Eve said. “Or, you know, email works, too.”
“Okay, shut up,” Maya said. “I know that. But it’s not that simple. Try to remember, ladies. Cast your minds way back to a time when you were scared and uncertain.”
“I know, sweetie.” Eve lay back next to Maya to stare up at the ceiling in solidarity.
“I’m coming in,” Nora said. “Make room.” She made a beep beep noise like a truck backing up.
“Oh, shut up. You’re one of those cute pregnant ladies who look exactly the same except for the bump,” Maya said as she moved over.
Once they were all lying on the bed, Nora said, “Hey, have you and Law had sex in this room?”
Eve cracked up. “Oh my God! The pink room is on its third romance!”
“Hello, as we just established, I am not having a ‘romance’ with Ben,” Maya said. “To date it has been more like arguing plus sex.”
“Yeah, but have you had sex in this room?” Nora punctuated the question with a little physical prodding, tapping her finger on Maya’s shoulder.
Maya laughed. “Hooboy, have I ever.”
The girls whooped.
Maya turned to Eve. “Actually, if this room really is three for three, you should start charging more for it.”
“Maybe it only works when I let people live in it for free,” Eve said. “If you think about it, both of you were temporarily homeless when you moved in here.”
That was a funny coincidence. “You should rename it. I don’t think ‘the pink room’ really telegraphs, Move into this room and you will get laid.”
“I actually used to think of it as the Pink Room of Pain,” Eve said. “You know how there’s the Red Room of Pain in Fifty Shades?”
They all laughed. “It’s actually always reminded me of a vagina,” Nora said. “I mean, I know given my line of work I see a lot more of them than you two do, but all this pink! Pink walls!”
“The Vagina Room!” Maya exclaimed as the three of them cracked up. “There you go, Eve. That there is marketing gold.”
“How about the Lucky Room?” Eve asked.
Maya sighed. If only.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brie, God bless her, agreed to come to town early when Law called her up and told her the whole story. He explained that he needed to disappear for a few days because he had to work on a project to show the woman he was in love with that he was dead serious,